


A moment of calm before the storm

by 30secondstotheimpala



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Child Abuse, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-25
Updated: 2018-10-25
Packaged: 2019-08-07 08:25:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16404824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/30secondstotheimpala/pseuds/30secondstotheimpala
Summary: A night in Joey's life.





	A moment of calm before the storm

**Author's Note:**

> as a child who grew up with a father that drank, this was kinda therapeutic for me. Not many people focus on Joey and i wanted to tell a story about him.
> 
> title is from HIM's song "all lips go blue"

It was a loud crash that woke Joey from his sleep. He opened his eyes and blinked a few times. He sat up in bed and looked over at his alarm clock. It seemed the little red numbers mocked him as it said 2:15. Joey laying back down he sighed trying to cover his face with his pillow.

It was 2 in the morning and he had to get up for school in 4 hours. There was another loud crash somewhere in his apartment. He didn’t want to get up, because he already knew what it was. His dad was drunk again, he didn’t even need to get out of his bed to know that. He knew that he needed to get up to make sure that the whole whole wouldn't be destroyed in a matter of a few minutes. It was an every night thing that at this point of his life Joey was used to. It just happened a little later tonight.

 

“Dad? Are you ok?” Joey asked walking out of his room and starting the search for his father. He eventually found him lying in a heap on the kitchen floor.

 

“Oh, Dad… why do you do this to yourself?” Joey asked trying to pick his father up off the floor. 

 

“Joe… oh my son. Did i wake you up?” His dad looked up him with a sad smile. 

 

“Yeah Dad, it’s ok though, how about let's get you to bed?” Joey said trying to get his father to follow him to bed so Joey himself could get back to sleep.

 

“No, it’s ok Joe.. Im fine right here. You go back to bed. Im sorry to wake you up.” He dad said slapping him too hard on the shoulder.

 

Joey wenced at the contact but his dad didn’t seem to notice.

Joey really wanted to go back to sleep, be he already knew how the night was going to end if he didn’t get his father into his own bed. Joey wasn’t really prepared to go through all that.

 

“Please dad?” Joey pleaded  with his father hoping that his alcohol soaked brain would see that Joey was right.

“Joseph, I am fine. Go to bed.” his father said gruffly lighting a cigarette.

  
  


Joey walked the short hallway back to his bedroom and knew that the night was only about to get worse. How was he supposed to get up and go to school like this. It was no wonder that his grades sucked. It was just that he was so tired all of the time. Joey tried to settle back down into bed and get comfortable. He felt his stomach rumble and remembered the tiny dinner that he had made before he went to bed. He felt like he was starving. He wanted to get up and get something to eat, but he didn’t want to get his dad started about how all he did was eat. Decided that it wasn’t worth the fight, Joey settled down into his bed and pulled the blanket up around him. It would be alright once he got to school tomorrow. Yugi always gave Joey his breakfast, so he would get two so he would be nice and full. Joey smiled when he thought about the kindness of his friend. 

 

Joey was deep in a dream about how he was becoming the new crowned king of Duel Monsters. He was surrounded by his friends. There was a crowd of people cheering his name and he looked over and saw a very pissed off Seto Kaiba. Joey was basking in the glory of winning against his arch rival when he was awakened again, but this time the noise was right outside his bedroom. Joey looked up at the clock. 3:45. “Great” He just wanted to get back to his dreams.

 

“Joseph!Why can’t i find any food in this house?” He father kicked open his door. His foot print matched all the other ones that had long been there.

 

Joey tried to ignore his father and pretend he was asleep in hopes that he would go away. Sometimes this worked and he hoped that it had tonight.

 

“ I know you hear me boy.” He said throwing the almost empty beer bottle at the wall behind Joey's head.

 

Joey sighed and sat up. He look at his dad, knowing that he wouldn’t understand anything he told him.

“ We didn’t buy anything dad, all we had is stuff that was given to us by the church people. And that’s pretty much all gone.” Joey said looking at his father.

 

“We had to have bought food Joseph..” His father was growing angry

 

“No dad, we didn’t. We didn’t have any left over money.” Joey said laying back down and turning over to his side.

 

“Well where did all the money go Joey?” His father was starting to grab things off his shelf and throw them to the ground. “ it probably went on all of this bullshit you keep buying.”

 

Joey knew in his head that this was just his father being obscenely drunk and trying to bait him into fighting with him. He wanted to keep his cool, but he was breaking his things.

 

“We don’t have any money because you drank it all up.” Joey said standing up and grabbing his things from his father.

 

“What the hell did you say to me boy?” Joey knew the punch was coming before his father even reared back. It was all to common thing.

 

After punching his son, Joey's’ dad walked out of his room and joey could hear what sounded like him destroying the kitchen. Joey reached his hand up to his face, feeling the bruise that was already starting to form. He hated living like this, he just wanted the normal life that his friends had. He had vague memories of what his life was like before his mom left. He remember being part of a happy family; and then it seemed like one day it stopped. He remember watching his mother's car pull away with his sister in it. He remember the pain of being left behind.

 

Joey tried to get back to sleep, but memories of how his life was plagued him. He hated who his father was now, and it hurt because he looked up to him for so long. He wanted to remember his dad for taking him out and throwing a baseball with him, but instead he just had memories of his father’s progressing alcohol addiction. His stomach growled again, he just wanted to get back to sleep because then he could go to school.

 

He wasn’t aware of when he had fallen back to sleep but Joey woke up again to the angry sounds of his alarm. 6:00. Joey’s body hurt with lack of sleep, but he knew that he had to get up. He got up and got dressed, and started his school day routine. Joey walked into the bathroom and looked into what was left of the shattered mirror. He sighed looking at the bruise on his face. He knew he had another day of explaining away this one too, he was getting tired of all the lies.

 

Joey exited the bathroom and gathered up the rest of his things. He took in the sight of the house, it had seemed that his father did more than just trash the kitchen. Some of the living room furniture was turned over and there was shattered glass all over the hardwood floor. 

“Great, that’s gonna be fun to clean up.” Joey knew that he was going to have his hands full when he got home from school. He walked into the kitchen and found his father passed out in the kitchen floor.  There was beer poured all over the floor and different concoctions of food that his father's drunken brain had thought sounded good because of the lack of food in the house. 

 

Joey walked over to his father and picked him up, despite being unconscious, joey lifted him over his shoulder with ease. He kicked a bottle out of the way and made his way to his father's bed room. He placed the older man on his bed and shut the door being him on his way out. Joey was hungry, but he knew there wasn’t anything there. So he headed out to school, knowing that tonight the process would begin all over again.


End file.
